So where do you go from here?

So what do you do once you’ve tried something and it didn’t turn out the way you thought? You have a college degree but there is no job out there for you and you’re back living at home with your parents…your marriage is trashed and he’s gone and now you have a baby to take care of…you followed your dream and now you are in a town with no friends and no family and no money and no idea what to do…you’ve got your dream job and you hate it and realize it’s not what you want to be doing at all…

Any of this sound familiar? So what do you do now? Well, life is what happens while we are making plans. Here’s some things that I can warn you to avoid since everyone I know has tried them and they just make the Angels of ‘worse’ perk up their ears: Don’t try again the exact same way doing the exact same thing and think something will change. ‘Cause it won’t. Don’t just do something to do something and see what happens. What happens is usually not good or could make it worse. And don’t try to get back at whoever or whatever. That’s just reflects badly on you and doesn’t address the need you have to make things better. Well, it might in the short-term, but let’s not think in the short-term, shall we?

Here are some things I do recommend: Give yourself a time out to feel your feelings. Yes, keep food on the table and clothes on the body and roof over your head, but after all that, go ahead and rail at fate. Once you’ve done that you will see things more clearly. Like a spring storm, feelings move through and leave things clear and clean for the next wave of growth. Give yourself permission to have failed. Everyone does it and 99.9999999% of the time it’s not fatal. Give yourself permission to dream again. Dream different. Dream bigger. Dream about who you are and can be. Then try again. If nothing else you now have a large amount of hard-earned experience to help guide you.